My Ex Mate Betrayed Me, Now The Enemy Alpha Wants Me

Chapter Three

Sloane.

I wake up choking on water.

My body jerks violently as I gasp, coughing until my lungs burn. Cold water surrounds me, reaching almost to my shoulders, and for several terrifying seconds, I have no idea where I am.

I try to move, but my limbs feel impossibly heavy.

Then a pair of hands grab my shoulders.

“Sloane!” I recognise that voice.

Lena.

She is floating in the water beside me, her wet hair plastered against her face, her blue eyes wide with panic.

“Breathe,” she says, gripping me tighter. “Sloane, breathe!”

I stare at her in complete shock, she's alive but my mind refuses to process it.

I reach for her face with trembling fingers, touching her cheek as though I need to make sure she's real. Warm skin. A racing pulse. Her breath fogging faintly in the cold air.

“Lena?”

“Yes, you idiot.” Her voice cracks. “I'm right here.”

A sob tears from my throat as I throw my arms around her, she stiffens a bit before wrapping her arms around me, clearly confused by the sudden embrace.

I bury my face against her shoulder, shaking so violently that my teeth chatter.

I remember watching her die, I remember her blood spreading across the dungeon floor, I remember her fingers going still, I remember the...dagger.

My hands fly to my chest immediately, where there should be blood and a gaping wound but there's nothing. I pull away from Lena and look down at myself.

I'm wearing a simple travel dress, soaked through and clinging to my skin.

My heart begins to pound as I search my memories for anything other than my death.

“What happened?” I ask and Lena frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“How did we get here?”

She stares at me for a moment.

“You don't remember?” I shake my head.

She glances toward the shore where two travel bags and our daggers lie scattered across the grass.

“You dragged me here.”

“I did what?”

“You woke me up in the middle of the night, soaked and fresh from shifting, told me we were leaving, stole half the food from the kitchen, threatened Silas with a dagger soaked in wolfsbane which I'm sure was a bluff, begged our parents to not let him follow and practically dragged me into the woods. We've been running for two days now. You've barely spoken, barely slept, and half the time you've looked like you were somewhere else entirely.”

For a moment, I stare at her, searching my mind for something—anything—until fragmented memories come crashing back.

Waking up in the carriage after what felt like years next to.....him wearing the ceremonial cloak we only wore once in our lifetimes.

After we got married. I immediately panicked and jumped out with one goal in mind. To find Lena, everything after that is still a blur.

“What day is it?” I ask, grabbing the side of my head to stop it from aching. Her expression contorts into that of confusion.

“What?…”

“What day?”

She tells me and my stomach drops.

Because I've lived through that date before, two years ago.

My gaze slowly falls to my hands as the reality hits me.

I'm twenty again. I died at twenty-two.

And somehow, I've been given another chance.

"Sloane," Lena says softly, her voice cutting through the sound of the lapping water. "What is going on?"

A lump forms in my throat, so thick I can barely swallow, when I stare at her.

"If I tell you," I whisper, my fingers trembling beneath the surface, "you are going to think I've lost my mind."

"Try me," she challenges, swimming closer. "I just became a fugitive for you. I think I've earned a little insanity.”

I take a deep, shuddering breath, staring down at my reflection in the dark water.

" I died, Lena. Or... I am going to die. Two years from now, on my twenty-second birthday."

Lena stops moving. Her brow furrows in sheer confusion. "What are you talking about?”

"Silas never loved me," the words burn my throat as I finally voice the truth out loud.

"He married me for the birthmark on the back of my neck—the Mark of the Moon Goddess. Two years from now, he and his family drag me down into a dungeon beneath Banecrest. They chain me to an altar. And Silas drives a silver dagger into my heart to sacrifice me so he can make Charlotte his new Luna."

Lena laughs, but it's a weak, nervous sound. "Sloane, that's... that's a horrific nightmare. A dream—"

"It wasn't a dream!" I snap. My voice cracks with a sudden, raw anguish. Tears finally spill over my eyelashes, scalding hot against my cold cheeks.

"I remember the smell of the damp stone, Lena. I remember the agony of the silver restraints burning my skin. And I remember you."

Lena flinches at the intensity in my eyes."You found out," I sob, the memories crashing over me like a tidal wave. "You fought your way down into that dungeon entirely alone to save me. You stood in the dust, covered in blood, and I screamed at you to watch out. But a guard... a guard struck you down from behind. I watched you die right in front of me, Lena.”

Lena stares at me. The skeptical look completely vanishes from her face. She takes in my hyperventilating chest, my trembling hands, and the sheer, haunting terror in my eyes.

"Before you took your last breath," I whisper, wiping a tear away, "you looked at me and said, 'Live, Sloane. Don't ever let them think you were only good for a sacrifice.' Then the vault flooded the chamber with silver light, and I woke up in the carriage next to my murderer."

A profound, chilling silence settles over the lake.

Lena wades toward me slowly. The confusion on her face morphs into something entirely different. It isn't fear or disbelief. It is a terrifying, protective fury.

Her jaw tightens so hard I can hear her teeth grind. Her blue eyes flash with her inner wolf's anger. She reaches out, grabbing my shoulders with an iron grip.

"That miserable, parasitic coward," Lena breathes, her voice shaking with pure rage. "I knew there was something off about him. I knew the way he looked at you was too perfect, too rehearsed."

"You... you believe me?" I whisper, stunned.

"Of course I believe you," she snaps fiercely, pulling me into a sudden, crushing hug. The warmth of her body chases away the chill of the lake.

"You're my sister. If you say he killed us, then he is already a dead man walking. I don't care about time travel, and I don't care about his Alpha title. He will never lay a single finger on you again. I swear it."

For the first time since I woke up in that carriage, the suffocating weight in my chest lifts. I wrap my arms around her, burying my face in her shoulder.

I saved her. She is here. She is alive.

Lena pulls back, a fierce, determined smirk replacing her anger. "So, let me get this straight.”

"What?"

"You got yourself murdered, got sent back two years, escaped your Alpha husband, and dragged me into the woods to plot a bloody reckoning. All in forty-eight hours."

I blink, a watery smile breaking through my tears. "When you say it like that, it sounds bad."

"Are you kidding? It's brilliant," she says, splashing a wave of water at me to break the heavy tension. "But we need to move. If Silas is as obsessed with that mark as you say he is, he won't stop hunting us."

"I know," I say, splashing her back. "But right now, staying dead to Banecrest is our priority."

Then—Snap.

We both freeze. Our smiles vanish instantly. Neither of us moves until another branch snaps, much closer this time.

"Did you hear that?" Lena whispers. Her voice drops to a cautious breath as she slowly backs toward the shoreline where our clothes and weapons lie.

"Yeah."

We hurriedly scramble out of the water, wrapping our travel cloaks tightly around ourselves and snatching our daggers just as a shadow shifts between the thick, overlapping branches.

A man steps into the clearing.

He is tall, with ash-blonde hair, sharp features, and an easy, predatory stride. The moment his eyes find us, Lena doesn't hesitate.

She launches herself forward, catching him off guard with her sudden speed. She pins him to the damp earth with the blade of her dagger pressed directly against his throat.

The stranger hits the ground with a low grunt, staring up at Lena before his eyes flick over to me. He looks completely bewildered by the sudden reception.

"This is not how I expected this conversation to go," he mutters, raising his hands slightly in mock surrender.

Lena presses the blade closer, drawing a thin white line against his skin. "Start talking. Who are you, and why are you following us?"

He sighs, his chest rising and falling beneath her grip.

"My name is Rhys. Rhys Lockwood."

My stomach drops. The name hits me like a physical blow, sending a cold spike of adrenaline through my veins.

I know that name. In my past life, he was a ruthless warrior—the Beta to Tristan Lockwood, the Alpha of the rival pack.

Rhys notices the sudden, pale shock on my face. A slow, knowing smirk touches his lips.

"I see you've heard of me.”